Hospitality in action

Granger church serves community

Granger church serves community

July 15, 2008|KIM KILBRIDE Tribune Staff Writer

Good Shepherd United Methodist Church is reaching out to its neighbors in a big way.

In addition to offering a weekly summer soccer program for kids Â? which is preceded by a free meal Â? a new playground has recently been installed on the churchÂ?s grounds on Elm Road, across from the Harris Branch of the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library.

A new paper pantry also recently opened at the church. Community members who are struggling financially are invited to come in monthly to stock up on items such as diapers, bar soap and toilet paper, all for free.

Pastor Mike Butler said these and other initiatives are simply about being hospitable.

Â?Jesus exhibited great hospitality with all kinds of people who came to him,Â? Butler said. Â?Hospitality was one of the ways Jesus loved people. As a congregation, we want to extend that kind of hospitality to our neighbors.

Â?Whether people attend our church or not, we want every person who lives in this area to feel like they belong to a community that values them and that loves and cares for them,Â? he said. On a recent Thursday evening, more than a dozen kids were playing soccer behind the church.

Ed Atkinson is a volunteer coach in the program, which offers participants both instructional time and play time each week.

Â?ItÂ?s open to kids whoÂ?ve never played, played a lot and everything in between,Â? he said.

The pastorÂ?s wife, Lesley Butler, led a group of younger kids in a game of soccer in another area on the churchÂ?s grounds.

And, the playground was busy with toddlers crawling all over the new equipment.

Inside, Eileen Howton, a spokeswoman for the church, showed a visitor the paper pantry.

The items, she said, are all donated by church members.

The pantry was started, she said, when members of the congregation learned that recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called Food Stamps) cannot use their benefits to buy paper items or personal care products.

The pantry, which is open during the evening hours of the last Monday of each month, began about four months ago, she said.